1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to traffic control in a multimode wireless communication device (henceforth also a wireless device). The term “multimode” here refers to a wireless communication device having multiple modes of operation and being, respectively, capable of providing wireless connectivity according to multiple standards or de-facto solutions. The wireless communication device may be a fixed or a mobile network element, or a mobile device.
2. Description of the Related Art
The current development towards truly mobile computing and networking has brought on the evolvement of various access technologies that also provide the users with access to the Internet when they are outside their own home network. At present, wireless Internet access is typically based on either short-range wireless systems or mobile networks, or both.
Short-range wireless systems have a typical range of a few tens of meters to one hundred meters. They often combine with systems wired to the Internet to provide communication over long distances. The category of short-range wireless systems includes wireless personal area networks (PANs ) and wireless local area networks (WLANs). They have the common feature of operating in unlicensed portions of the radio spectrum, usually either in the 2.4 GHz Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) band or in the 5 GHz unlicensed band.
Wireless personal area networks are cost-effective and use low power wireless devices that have a typical range of about ten meters. The best-known example of wireless personal area network technology is Bluetooth, which uses the 2.4 GHz ISM band. It provides a peak air link speed of one Mbps, and power consumption low enough for use in personal, portable electronics such as PDAs and mobile phones. Wireless local area networks generally operate at higher peak speeds of about 2 to 100 Mbps and have a longer range, which requires greater power consumption.
The development referred to above has also brought on the evolvement of so-called ad-hoc networks, which offer unrestricted mobility without any underlying infrastructure. The nodes of an ad-hoc network are often mobile, in which case the network is called a mobile ad-hoc network (MANET). Unlike traditional wireless networks, ad-hoc networks need not necessarily rest on an underlying infrastructure, such as base stations. Instead, all the nodes of an ad-hoc network share the responsibility of network formation and management. In an ad-hoc network, each node therefore acts as a router transmitting data/messages to other nodes of the network, and intermediate ad-hoc nodes relay the data/messages between two nodes located far apart from each. Standalone ad-hoc networks are useful at least whenever it is impossible to use a fixed network infrastructure due to geographical, terrestrial, or time constraints, for example. Local ad-hoc networks can also be integrated into legacy networks, such as mobile networks. The dynamically changing topology of an ad-hoc network sets high requirements for the routing protocols used in the ad-hoc nodes. This is one reason why activities in the development of the ad-hoc networks have for the present related mainly to routing aspects.
[Along with the above-discussed development, the number of radio technologies utilized in the terminals, and also the number of multi-mode (and multi-standard) wireless terminals will increase. With an increasing number of technologies used for networking, the diversity of the terminals will increase within future networks. For example, the trunk node of an ad-hoc network, which acts as an access point or gateway for other ad-hoc nodes in the ad-hoc network, communicates with an access point of a radio access network and with at least one other ad-hoc node being its subordinate node. The radio interface towards the radio access network is typically based on a different technology than the radio interface towards the ad-hoc network. Furthermore, the inter-node connections within the ad-hoc network may be based on different technologies.
One node may thus have to handle a plurality of data streams over the same or different radio interfaces, in addition to performing routing for the data streams. The node must therefore ensure, for example, that the end-to-end Quality of Service (QoS) requirements are fulfilled for the individual data streams, even though the QoS solutions and other capabilities of the different interfaces, and also the QoS requirements of the related data streams, would be quite different from each other.
In the above-referred communication environment the problem arises how to process and coordinate the different data streams to assure the end-to-end service provision for the different connections, while also maximizing the Quality of Service (QoS) requirements, optimizing the use of the physical resources of the node, and minimizing the interference and power consumption.
The invention seeks to provide a solution for the above-mentioned problem.